The establishment of a Harry S. Truman Center for Advancement of Peace, a multi-million dollar project dedicated to applying scientific methods to the isolation and destruction of the causes of war, was announced here today at impressive ceremonies attended by President Johnson, former President Truman, Chief Justice Earl Warren of the U.S. Supreme Court, and many dignitaries from the United States and Israel. The Center will be situated on the campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It will award an annual $50,000 Truman Center Peace Prize as part of its comprehensive anti-war program.
President Johnson devoted his address to major domestic and foreign issues, avoiding any reference to the fact that the Truman Center will be in Israel. He lauded the former President and praised the fact that a center for the advancement of peace will carry Mr. Truman’s name. “I came back to Independence to be with one of the world’s most persistent searchers for peace,” he said. He renewed his invitation to the “aggressors” in Asia to meet at the negotiating table.
The auditorium at Truman Library here, where the ceremony took place, was filled with personalities who included a White House group that came from Washington; more than 30 founders of the Truman Peace Center in Jerusalem, each of whom contributed $100,000 for the establishment of the institution; Dr. Eliahu Elath, president of the Hebrew University, who came here from Israel for the ceremony; Ambassador Arthur Lourie, Deputy Director-General of the Israel’s Foreign Ministry, who flew here from Jerusalem as the personal representative of Israel’s Prime Minister Levi Eshkol; Avraham Harman, Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, representing President Zalman Shazar of Israel; and Samuel Rothberg, chairman of the board of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, which sponsored the event.
Chief Justice Warren, referring to the projected Center in Israel, said: “Many nations have great academies devoted solely to the art of war. But I know of no academy or university in any nation devoted solely to the art of peace. The Truman shrine we here inaugurate is, in fact, the only such peace institution I know of which will be part of a great university. Let us hope the idea will spread to many universities, as civilization itself spread thousands of years ago from that ancient part of the world where it will be located.”
TRUMAN STRESSES NEED TO ABOLISH WAR; LAYS HOPE ON JERUSALEM CENTER
Mr. Truman himself, in accepting the honor of having the Peace Center named after him, struck the keynote of the occasion by declaring that “the first order of business confronting mankind is to abolish war. I hope that the Center for the advancement of peace will bring to each and every one of the founders the enduring satisfaction of having participated in an undertaking designed to save us from ourselves,” he said. “It is the first order of responsibility confronting all government leaders, under whatever system they choose to live, to determine how to do away with war completely as a way of international life. May this Center become a major source of light and reason toward the achievement of eternal peace.”
The Truman Center, it was announced, will be housed in a $10,000,000 structure whose design will be selected in an international architecture competition. It will be an interfaith, interracial and supranational institution. It will be governed by an international group of trustees to be chosen from among statesmen, scholars, clergymen, United Nations officials, writers and “people who have made significant contributions to international peace efforts.” There will also be 12 permanent faculty chairs devoted to the pursuit of peace.
TRUMAN INVITED TO VISIT ISRAEL AND SEE THE CENTER AT WORK
Dr. Elath, outlining the details of the manner in which the Truman Center will work toward world peace, invited Mr. and Mrs. Truman to visit Israel and the Hebrew University, and to see the Truman Center at work. Addressing the distinguished audience, he
“Last but not least the Truman Center will endeavor to contribute to the friendly relations and better understanding already happily existing between the Israel and the American peoples,” the president of the Hebrew University continued. “The name of President Truman will remain forever the source of inspiration for further strengthening of these relations between our two free democracies for the preservation of human liberties, peace and security in the world.”
Ambassador Lourie told the assemblage that Premier Eshkol regretted that he could not leave Israel today, due to internal affairs. He lauded Mr. Truman’s postwar role in “helping to rescue the surviving remnants of the concentration camps” and for his “imperishable contribution to the reestablishment in our day of Israel’s nationhood.” “The participation in these proceedings of President Johnson,” Mr. Lourie said, “is a noble, a generous and a splendid tribute to the character of this occasion. That he found it possible to do so will be greeted with immense satisfaction in Israel.” Among the personalities who addressed the gathering was Nathaniel Goldstein, president of the American Friends of the Hebrew University.
NAMES OF FOUNDERS ANNOUNCED; EACH MADE $100,000 CONTRIBUTION
Mr. Rothberg, as chairman of the board of the American Friends of the Hebrew University, introduced the individual founders of the Truman Center at the inaugural ceremony. At Mr. Truman’s request, David Hoyes, his long-time friend and aide, presided. Messages were received from Pope Paul VI, President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Phillipines who was represented by Jose D. Ingles, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson of Canada, and from other statesmen.
The names of the Truman Center founders, each of whom contributed $100,000, were announced by the American Friends of the Hebrew University. They included: Mrs. Charlotte Bergman, New York; Abraham Borman, Huntington Woods, Mich.; Louis H. Boyar, Beverly Hills, Calif.; Yekutiel Federmann, Haifa, Israel; Harold L. Fierman, New York; George Frankel, Greenwich, Conn.; Harry H. Frankel, New York; George Friedland, Philadelphia; Saul Furman, New York; Philip J. Goldberg, New York; Dr. Philip Gotlieb, Coral Gables, Fla.; Anatol M. Josepho, Santa Monica, Calif.
Also Philip M. Klutznick, Chicago; Dr. Mortimer M. Kopp, New York; Stanley S. Langendorf, San Francisco; Joseph Levy, New York; Isidore Lipschutz, New York; Joseph M. Mazer, New York; Samuel M. Melton, Columbus, C.; Baron de Hirsch Meyer, Miami Beach; Jakob Michael, New York; Joel Ostrowicz, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Oscar S. Pattiz, Beverly Hills, Calif; Julius Jack Rosen, Baltimore; James Ross, Youngstown, O.; Samuel Rothberg, Peoria, Ill.; Baron Edmond de Rothschild, Paris.
Also Mrs. Emma Schaver, Southfield, Mich.; Mark S. Schulman, Beverly Hills, Calif.; Leonard I. Shankman, New York; Herbert M. Singer, New York; Leon H. Sturman, Rochester, N.Y., executor of the estate of Samuel Sturman; Jerry M. Sudarsky, Bakersfield, Calif.; Benjamin H. Swig, San Francisco; Abraham F. Wechsler, New York; Ben Weingart, Los Angeles; and William Wishnick, Scarsdale, N.Y.
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